> ... campaign to convince consumers to buy
> American-made products ...
Several problems:
1. A great many products are simply not made in USA at all.
Just considering my PC, which I built from parts, perhaps
the only parts actually made in USA are the RAM (Idaho),
and the CPU (Texas, but might have been Germany). But
almost ALL the software, it's worth noting, is US.
All the other hardware was made in China, Ireland, Japan,
Korea, Mexico or Taiwan - and there are in most case NO
US factories making these items, even though they are
US-branded.
2. Those that appear to be US-made often aren't.
My Voyager van was made in Canada. No way to know that
until after delivery.
These sorts of campaigns are bound to fail. The only
thing that will make any real difference is changing
the underlying conditions that make the US uncompetitive
in factory manufacturing - taxes, regulations.
About 25-40% of ANY "US-made" car is made in PRChina--the sub-assemblies for most of the hydraulic systems, the brake pads, good hunks of the a/c and plastic parts...
The Big Three have forced that, explicitly, telling Tier 1 and Tier 2 vendors that they WILL have offshore plants, or there's no purchase agreement.
the way to tell where a vehicle is made is to check the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) - which you an get before you buy. The first digit gives country of manufacture:
Here is the key:
http://www.vinguard.org/vin.htm
How to read a VIN
1st character- Identifies the country in which the vehicle was manufactured.
For example: U.S.A.(1or 4), Canada(2), Mexico(3), Japan(J), Korea(K), England(S), Germany(W), Italy(Z)
2nd character- Identifies the manufacturer. For example; Audi(A),
BMW(B), Buick(4), Cadillac(6), Chevrolet(1), Chrysler(C), Dodge(B),
Ford(F), GM Canada(7), General Motors(G), Honda(H), Jaquar(A), Lincoln(L), Mercedes Benz(D), Mercury(M), Nissan(N), Oldsmobile(3), Pontiac(2or5), Plymouth(P), Saturn(8), Toyota(T), VW(V), Volvo(V).
3rd character- Identifies vehicle type or manufacturing division.
4th to 8th characters- VDS - Vehicle Descriptor Section. These 5 characters occupy positions 4 through 8 of the VIN and may be used by the manufacturer to identify attributes of the vehicle. Identifies vehicle features such as body style, engine type, model, series, etc.
9th Character - The check digit "character or digit 9" in the sequence of a vehicle identification number (VIN) built beginning with model year 1981 (when the 17 character digit format was established) can best be described as identifying the VIN accuracy.
A check digit shall be part of each vin (since 1981) and shall appear in position
nine (9) of the VIN on the vehicle and on any transfer documents containing
the vin prepared by the manufacturer to be given to the first owner for purposes
other than resale. Thus, the vins of any two vehicles manufactured within a 30
year period shall not be identical. The check digit means a single number or letter
"x" used to verify the accuracy of the transcription of the vehicle identification
number.
After all other characters in the VIN have been determined by the manufacturer
the check digit is calculated by carrying out a mathematical computation
specified. This is based on vin position, sample vin, assigned value code,
weight factor and multiply assigned value times weight factors. The values are added and the total is divided by 11. The remainder is the check digit number.
The correct numeric remainder - zero through nine (0-9) will appear.
However, if the remainder is 10 the letter "X" is used to designate the check
digit value/number.
10th character- Identifies the model year. For example: 1988(J), 1989(K), 1990(L), 1991(M), 1992(N), 1993(P), 1994(R), 1995(S), 1996(T),
1997(V), 1998(W), 1999(X), 2000(Y)------2001(1), 2002(2), 2003(3)
11th character- Identifies the assembly plant for the vehicle.
12th to 17th characters- VIS - Vehicle Identifier Section. The last 8 characters of the VIN are used for the identification a of specific vehicle. The last four characters shall always be numeric. Identifies the sequence of the vehicle for production as it rolled off the manufacturers assembly line.